MUSKEGON COUNTY -- In a Muskegon murder case with many points of view, two new perspectives became public Tuesday -- both of them second-hand accounts of the accused murderers' own words.

The stories, told on the witness stand, were enough for 60th District Judge Maria Ladas Hoopes to find probable cause that two men had roles in the early June 20 shooting death of 69-year-old Willie C. Rice during a robbery in his home at 1152 Spring: Darius Tyrone Huntington, 20, of Muskegon Heights, charged as the shooter; and 20-year-old Derrick Lynell Hewlett of Muskegon, accused of "casing out" the home by entering it a few minutes before the robbery.

After separate, back-to-back hearings, Ladas Hoopes ordered Huntington and Hewlett bound over for trial in 14th Circuit Court. Both men are charged with open murder.

A third murder defendant, 20-year-old Cordney Lawayne Rowe of Muskegon, is cooperating with authorities but was not called to testify at Tuesday's hearings. Rowe earlier waived his own probable-cause hearing.

In Huntington's case, his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend testified that he called her the night after Rice's death, sounding "worried," and said he needed to talk. Cynoda Sparkling said she and Huntington had dated for some four years but had broken up in May.

Sparkling said she went to meet Huntington in her car, accompanied by a female friend of hers. She said Huntington, acting nervous, got in the back and told her a startling tale:

"He began telling me that he robbed someone by the name Willie C.," Sparkling testified. She said Huntington told her "Willie C. struggled with the gun, and the gun went off.

"After that, he started crying and said he didn't mean to shoot him," Sparkling testified. "I panicked and told him he had to get out of the car." He did so, and the conversation ended, she said.

Going into more detail later, Sparkling said Huntington told her "that when he came in the house, he had a gun pointed at 'Old School' (Rice's nickname). ... He said Willie C. grabbed the barrel of the gun," the two wrestled for it, and it went off.

Under cross-examination by Huntington's attorney, James A. Marek, Sparkling acknowledged that she lied to police at first, telling them Huntington had been with her at the time of the killing. "Because in the beginning, I thought I could help him, save him," she said.

At Hewlett's hearing, Muskegon Police Detective Richard Bleich testified that Hewlett told him after his arrest -- after initially denying being at Rice's house near the time of the murder -- that he, Huntington and Rowe went to Rice's house planning to rob a man nicknamed "Benton Harbor" who was known to be there often. Hewlett said the man owed him $200 or $300, Bleich testified.

Hewlett told Bleich he went into the house the night of June 19-20 to see if "Benton Harbor" was there and saw he wasn't. Hewlett said he shook the hands of each person in the house, then went back outside to his companions and said he didn't want to help rob anyone else, Bleich testified.

Hewlett said he walked away, then heard two or three gunshots from the direction of Rice's house, Bleich testified.

Hewlett is charged under an "aiding and abetting" theory as the man who allegedly led the others to Rice's house and set up a robbery that led to a homicide.

Both defendants are being held in the Muskegon County Jail without bond.

Authorities have said the goal of the robbery was a large amount of money believed to be in the house, known in the neighborhood as gambling house.